Brandon Smith

Education

University of Oxford, Magdalen College

Master of Physics

October 2019 - June 2023

Oxford, UK

Degree Details

  • Degree Classification: 2:1 (68 average)
  • Majored in Quantum Information Processing
  • Gibbs Prize for Computing

Masters Thesis

"Mitigating Systematic Uncertainties in High Energy Physics Multivariate Analysis with Feedforward Neural Networks and Variational Autoencoders"

This research focused on improving the robustness of machine learning models used in high-energy physics analysis, particularly for detecting Higgs boson decay signals against background noise.

Key Achievements:

  • Analyzed large datasets (up to 50GB) with Python (Matplotlib, Pandas)
  • Trained XGBoost classifier: 73.31% accuracy in signal/background particle prediction
  • Improved model robustness with autoencoder for anomaly detection in noisy data
  • Developed 2-layer FNN with PyTorch: matched XGBoost accuracy, +2.55% sensitivity

Key Courses

  • Quantum Information Processing
  • Machine Learning & Statistical Data Analysis
  • Computational Physics
  • Advanced Quantum Theory
  • Condensed Matter Physics